If it Kills Me
by Laila'slittleB
Summary: AU Freddie has never told Carly about his feelings, but now in his senior year he's determined to make her fall for him. The process might just kill him though.


It was a normal day In Seattle, the gray clouds giving a dreary setting overbushwell plaza. Freddie was pacing in his room, his blue tee shirt sticking lightly onto his back as be flopped onto his bed. He held his face in his hands and shook his head.

"what am I going to do?" he asked himself

He sat upright and looked to his right, on his nightstand stood three pictures, one of him and his mom, one of him, Sam, and Carly when they had first started ICarly and the last one, the one he held most dear to him, was a picture of him and Carly from the beginning of the year. She had surprised him a the picture was taken by kissing his cheek as he smiled contently. He took the picture in his hands and looked down at it, he had know Carly for almost a decade and he had still yet to tell her how he felt.

He was in love with her.

He realized his feelings in 7th grade but had dismissed them as a schoolyard crush. But as they went to hight school they never went away, even now partway through his senior year he still held the same feelings, yes they had grown, they had grown immensely but he knew what he felt. He was in love and he determined for her to love him back.

His thoughts came to a sudden stop when he heard a knock at his door followed by his mother calling his name. He slowly got up gently placing the photo on his night stand and heading to the door, poking his head out he answered his mom.

"Yes?" He was startled to see Carly sitting in his living room.

"Rehearsal started thirty minutes ago." she said flatly.

"Damn, I'm sorry, can we do it now? I'm sure Sam's eating all of your food over there anyway."

"Yeah, she is." she laughed.

Freddie felt his insides melt as she laughed, her eyes sparkling gently. If he had an ounce of courage he would tell her how he felt. She stood up and they walked out to the hallway, she turned and smiled at him before opening the door. As predicted Sam was sitting on the couch with a box of donut holes resting on her lap.

"Finally, Fredwierdo gets here." she said rolling her eyes before taking a handful of the sweet treats and hoping off the couch.

"Oh Sam stop." Carly pleaded. Sam scoffed and the trio continued to the studio.

Once there they all sat in the large bean bag chairs and started to collaborate.

"Well, we have those dancing farm animals on tape." Freddie said gesturing to his computer cart on the corner of the room.

Freddie hadn't overlooked the lingering looks Carly had given him all night and the meeting quickly passed. Sam had a date with Johnny, a boy from the wrestling team who didn't mind her abrasive ness and liked her for her, and left fairly quickly leaving Freddie and Carly alone.

"So..." Freddie started

"You're acting different." she stated boldly

"How so?" he asked casually though he secretly hoped that she had figured it out.

"I don't know. Just different."

"Well, I'm sorry for that, I feel fine."

"Freddie, I know you," she said walking over to him and resting a hand on his shoulder making him shudder slightly. "you don't feel fine."

He looked at her and melted into her chocolate eyes. He stood up and turned to her fully.

"I just..." he trailed off not knowing how to approach the subject. "we're best friends right? We've been together through thick and thin?"

"Of course" she smiled

"Well..."

suddenly Carly's phone rang interrupting him and sufficiently dwindling any courage he had mustered up.

"I'm sorry, but it's Alan! Can you believe that? He actually called!" she said excitedly quickly placing her pear phone to her ear.

"Yeah, great." Freddie said to himself, he stepped away and stayed at the door for a few moments before dashing down the stairs.

"Hey bud!" Spencer exclaimed before seeing Freddie fully. "Woah, what happened?"

"Nothing Spence, don't worry about it." Freddie said brushing past him quickly before slamming the door and entering his own apartment.

"Why Alan!" Freddie exclaimed as soon as he was in his own room. "Why not any other guy, why the quarterback? Can you be any more cliche?" he fell back onto his bed and grabbed a notebook, he would make Carly fall in love with him, even if it killed him.

Step one: get fit. Now Freddie wasn't a wimp, he had muscles and worked out quite often with Shane who joined the soccer team the previous year. But this was different, Freddie wanted to get defined, the kind of body that girls, Carly in perticular, drooled over. This part would be ongoing and would require hard work and dedication but he was ready.

Step two: new wardrobe. Freddie was done being the nerdy best friend, he was going to complete Change what Carly thought she knew about him and his appearance wasn't helping his cool factor.

Step three: learn something new. Freddie wasn't just doing this for Carly, though she was a big factor, he was doing it for himself as well. He had always wanted to learn how to play the drums, now was his chance to learn.

Freddie decided to start with step two which he though would be easiest. He had saved up all of the money from the gangs various money making ploys and a few tech jobs on the side and with the interest accruing on it he had a lot of cash to spend as he pleased. He headed to the mall and went to a couple of the stores, he could tell he was in for quite a shipping spree when he realized that he could buy anything he wanted too.

Three hours and two hundred dollars later he was back in his room searching through the bags of clothes to find something to change into. Finally he decided on light gray jeans, a plain white tee shirt and a jean jacket over. He completed his outfit with a brand new pair of black Ray-bans. He grabbed his keys and looked at himself in the mirror.

"Not too shabby, Benson." he said to himself as he turned around smiling brightly. He wandered through his apartment and found himself outside of the shays apartment. He sighed and knocked quietly.

"Freddie?" Carly answered as she opened the door.

"Yes?" he said chuckling a bit at her reaction.

"You look... Different." she said smiling at him.

"Thanks? Can I come in?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." she opened the door a bit wider and let him into the house.

"You know Carly, the weather has really cleared up and it's pretty warm outside. Wanna go get some ice cream in the park?"

"Sure let me get my purse." she ran up the small steps and grabbed her bag at the landing. He was nervous to say the least but he had gotten this far.

The had a wonderful time, he got chocolate while she got strawberry and the laughed and joked about old times while they strolled down the parks various walkways. By the end of the day she was holding his arm and he was holding on to the very limited self control he had not to kiss her. As they arrived to their apartments they were still both laughing at a memory from years ago.

"Thank you Freddie." she said looking into his eyes.

"My pleasure." She turned to leave and he caught her hand. She whipped around and blushed at how close they were.

"Carly I..." he was at a loss for words, did he say it now? Or wait? "Had a really good time." he felt slightly disappointed but came to the conclusion that one day wasn't enough for her to completely change her mind about him.

"Me too." she smiled. He let her go and the door closed behind her with a faint thud.

As the weeks passed he started to feel more and more confident in his new and improved self, he had started taking drum lessons about 5 weeks ago and had picked it up quite quickly, and people were starting to notice him. He was building up the courage to finally tell Carly exactly how he felt. He decided that he would get her flowers beforehand so he started on his journey to the flower shop and reflected on what had changed in these short seven weeks.

They were seniors, there lives were changing, the cold October air was chilling his skin as he ran a hand up and down its length. Their days consisted of collage applications and essays, their nights of walks in the park. He thought that maybe, just maybe he had wormed his way into a position where she could accept and possibly even love him.

He walked out of the shop with a bouquet of stargazers and calla lillies, Carly's favorite, and a card. He walked quickly to the groovy smoothie to get strawberry splats for Carly and himself when he saw her in the corner of the small shop. She was sitting with Alan, laughing and flirting, lightly touching his bicep as he flexed for her. Then he felt his heart shatter instantly, the pain in his chest making him feel like he couldn't breathe, she kissed him, slow and soft, though he quickly turned it into something more passionate. He couldn't bare it anymore. Freddie dropped the flowers and card where he was at and ran. He couldn't think of anything else but to get as far away from the place that had hurt him so badly. He stopped at the park and slumped into the closest bench, unknowingly allowing a confused Carly to catch up with him.

"Freddie!" Carly panted running up to the bench. "What happened, I saw you and then you ran off."

"Nothing, just went for a run."

"You're a liar, Freddie, and a bad one at that. What's wrong?"

"You probably didn't even see what I was holding."

"Well the flowers were trashed, but I picked up this card, it was sealed so I didn't open it."

"Go ahead, I'm done."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, if I were smart I would have told you from the beginning."

"Told me what! I can't read your mind Freddie!"

"Well obviously." he said as he went to stand up. "Just read the note."

With that he started to walk, he thought that faintly he could head the sound of Carly calling his name.

* * *

"Hello this is Freddie Benson, I'm not there right now. Leave me a message!"

"hey Freddie, I opened the envelope, it was just a heart... I'm confused. You've been avoiding me. Call me back."

* * *

"Hello this is Freddie Benson, I'm not there right now. Leave me a message!"

"Hey Freddie, you won't answer my calls... Call me back."

* * *

"Hello this is Freddie Benson, I'm not there right now. Leave me a message!"

"Come on Freddie. Answer me back."

* * *

"Hello this is Freddie Benson, I'm not there right now. Leave me a message!"

*sigh* "Bye."

* * *

"Hello this is Freddie Benson, I'm not there right now. Leave me a message!"

"... " *click*

* * *

It was two months after that happened that Freddie decided that he needed to stop hiding from Carly, he had avoided her in every way, from dodging her in between classes to ignoring her calls. So he did the simplest thing he could, he went to her apartment. *Knock knock*.

"Hello?" she said as she opened up the door. "Oh god Freddie!" she said as she ran into his arms.

He held her for a moment before she pushed him away. He barley had time to register what was happening before he heard a slap and felt pain explode in his left cheek.

"Who do you think you are Freddie? Waltzing in here like nothing's wrong! It's been two months! Two months where you completely avoided me. What about Sam! You know we had to figure out all the tech stuff by ourselves because you left us!"

"I know, I'm sorry but what was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, not abandon your friends!" she yelled exasperated. Freddie opened his mouth to speak but closed it quickly. "Why did you even do it! Sam and I spent at least a month trying to figure out the million dollar question."

"I can't tell you." he said looking at his shoes.

"Why not? I swear to god Freddie if it's something stupid I'm going to slap you do hard that Sam's abuse will feel like a kiddie ride."

He had to smile at that, Carly was always bad at making analogies.

"You make me nervous, you know, I would be risking our friendship if I say it."

"Just say it."

"I'm scared that I'm wrong."

"You never know until you try." she said, his doubtful look ebbing at her anger at him

"I still can't say it, even through everything we've been together for, all the moments, the laughs, the tears, the years..."

"Say it mister poet man!"

"Carly, I'm in love with you."

"I didn't know..."

"I didnt want you to know." he said looking up at the ceiling

"Well this isn't an awkward situation at all..."

"Tell me 'bout it."

After a silence that seemed to last forever but in fact only lasted a few seconds Carly spoke up.

"Why didn't you want me to know?"

"Because I could lose you. I'd rather be your geeky friend who everyone but you knows is hopelessly in love than lose you."

"You were never just my geeky friend."

And then he kissed her, he didn't want it to be perfect or soft, he wanted her to feel exactly how he felt and how much he loved her. She was stiff at first but then grabbed his shirt and pulled him impossibly closer. They melted into the kiss and into each other. Slowly forgetting the rest of the world and only knowing what was within each other.

"Freddie, I just..." she shook her had as though trying to clear her thoughts.

Then, she was gone. He was left with the taste of her lips on his and no real answer, and that's what crushed him.


End file.
